


The Perfect Haircut

by Briarwitch



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:09:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5038723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briarwitch/pseuds/Briarwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos is having trouble finding a new barber</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Perfect Haircut

Carlos had been living in Night Vale for almost a year and a half now. A lot had happened in that time, and most of it had gone into his notes. He was still far from unraveling any of Night Vale’s mysteries, but he still had faith in his scientific processes, and had high hopes that this year he would actually make some progress.

One thing that hadn’t happened, at least, not since very close to when he had arrived, was a haircut. It would seem that Carlos’ hair, in rebellious defiance to the rest of his scientific studies, was actually making progress. It was constantly getting in his way, and almost long enough to fit in a pony tail.

Carlos didn’t worry himself too much over keeping himself from getting scruffy, but he refused to go so far as to wear a pony tail. And so came the morning that he finally decided to take time off and get his hair cut.

Carlos sat up, stretched, and turned so that he was sitting on the bed with his feet on the ground. He hadn’t worn anything to bed – he still wasn’t used to the weather here in the desert, and sleeping through the warm nights in anything other than the buff was unbearable. Besides, the person who he’d been sleeping with certainly hadn’t minded.

Right on cue, a pair of pale hands appeared over Carlos’ hairy chest, hugging him from behind. Carlos leaned back with a smile, and Cecil started nuzzling his neck. 

“Good morning,” Cecil purred between light kisses along Carlos’ jaw-line. Carlos had spent the night in Cecil’s apartment, because Carlos’ living quarters consisted of a cot in the corner of the laboratory he was renting. He didn’t mind his sleeping arrangements, it’s just that Cecil’s king-sized bed was a much more attractive place for intimacy than a cot in  
a lab was.

“Morning,” Carlos replied, turning so he could kiss his boyfriend full on the mouth. Cecil had been obsessed with Carlos from the moment he came to town. At first, Carlos had thought that the radio host was mocking him. When it became obvious that he wasn’t, it had been a bit creepy. By then Carlos had been in Night Vale long enough to feel suspicious of Cecil’s attention, and had been sure of a secret, sinister motive. Then there had been the incident at the bowling alley a few months back and…well, Cecil’s innocence had been made clear. When someone sobs openly on public radio because they think you’re dead, it’s kind of hard not to trust them a little. They had started dating not long after that, and things were going well, considering the cultural differences.

Carlos grimaced and pulled back from the kiss as his bangs fell into his eyes. “Ugh,” he said, brushing his hair back with his fingers. “I think I’m going to get this mess cut today.”

Cecil’s reaction was as vehement as it was unexpected.

“No!” the blonde exclaimed, grabbing Carlos’ head and holding it tightly against his chest. “No, no, no! You can’t!”

“Ack, Cecil!” Carlo’s struggled in his boyfriend’s grip for a moment, but when it became obvious he couldn’t squirm out, he went limp. “What are you going on about?” he asked,  
his face pressed against one of the purple, swirling tattoos that wrapped around Cecil’s chest and arms.

Cecil loosened his grip slightly and kissed the top of Carlos’ head. “Don’t cut your hair, it’s perfect.”

Carlos sighed. He had thought they’d finally gotten over the whole “you are so perfect” phase of the relationship.

“Cecil,” he said, finally managing to pull himself away from his boyfriend’s chest. He took Cecil’s wrists so he couldn’t grab his head again and gave him his most stubborn frown. 

“I need a haircut. It’s annoying when it’s this long, not to mention uncomfortable in the heat.”

Cecil pouted. He was pretty cute when he pouted, but Carlos wasn’t going to let that persuade him into keeping his hair long. “But I like it,” Cecil said.

“And what about when it’s down to my shoulders? Will you like it then?”

“Yes.”

Carlos sighed and let go of Cecil’s wrists. This was going to be another one of those arguments, like the one they’d had over Carlos using pens, or the time they’d spent an entire evening debating whether or not astrology was a science.

“What do you want for breakfast?” he asked, changing the subject.

Cecil brightened considerably when Carlos stopped talking about getting a haircut. He thought for a moment, then gave the scientist a playfully seductive look. “You,” he said, leaning in closer for a kiss.

 

Carlos was of course still going to get his hair cut, he was just not going to tell Cecil until after the fact. The barber who had cut his hair before, Tully, was unfortunately out of business. Actually, he had gone crazy and had wandered off into the desert. No one had seen him for months now. This would have been unusual anywhere else, but it was typical for Night Vale. It seemed like not a week went by without someone going mad, getting eaten, or turning into some horrific monster.

The end result of Tully’s descent into madness was that Carlos had to find a new barber. That wasn’t too hard, there were plenty of them in the city. Carlos went to the closest, a little place across the corner from the library called “Ulthar’s.”

Carlos walked into the air conditioned building. There was only one barber working, and he was finishing up with another customer. Carlos sat down to wait, and no sooner had he seated himself than a large black and white cat appeared on his lap and demanded to be petted. Carlos obliged. It was nice to see a cat that was actually a cat, and not that….thing Cecil had floating in the men’s bathroom at the radio station.

The other customer paid and left, and Carlos put the cat back on the floor and stood up. “Hi,” he said to the Barber with a smile, “I’d like a haircut, please.

“One second,” the barber said, finishing writing something down. He looked up from his account book, and when he saw Carlos he went pale under his tan.

“Sorry!” he said abruptly. “Uh, so sorry, but we’re, uh, closed.”

Carlos blinked. “What?” He turned and looked back at the glass front door, where the hours were poster next to a “Hiram McDaniels for Mayor” flyer. “But it’s a Monday, aren’t you open until five?”

“Nope, uh, that is….” The barber’s pupils zipped back and forth as he paused. “Uh…only one hair-cut per day, and I’ve already filled my quota. So, uh, bye. Please leave.”

“Um…okay,” Carlos said, backing back up to the door. He was bewildered by the man’s reaction, but it wasn’t the oddest response he’d encountered while living in Night Vale, and there were other barbers he could go to.

The black and white cat meowed at him as he left, as if saying good-bye.

 

Carlos’ luck did not improve from there. It seemed like everywhere he went, people made excuses not to cut his hair. The bug-eyed woman at the Marsh Family Salon turned him away because he didn’t have an appointment, despite the “walk-ins welcome” sign on the front window. Another barber told him all of his scissors were broken, and still another actually faked his own death until Carlos went away. He didn’t even get to exchange words with the man behind the counter at “ElderCuts.” He clutched the counter when Carlos came in, and started vibrating with such force that the potted plant near the register crashed to the ground.

Finally, he found himself walking into the very last barbershop in all of Night Vale, feeling very frustrated. The shop was called Cathurian Cuts, and was popular with Night Vale’s teenage crowd.

The young woman behind the counter was talking on the phone when he came in. She had waist length tomato red hair and purple lipstick on. Behind her, a Native American man was giving a sun-burnt boy a mohawk, and a bald woman with tattooed symbols over her scalp was trimming a dusky-skinned girl’s hair.

Tomato-hair looked up when Carlos approached the counter. “Uh, yeah, he just came in,” she said into the phone. “Gotta go.”

Carlos crossed his arms as she hung up. “Okay,” he said, feeling obstinate. “Let me guess, you’re all out of shampoo? Or are you going to start speaking in tongues?”

Tomato-hair smiled her purple smile. “I’m sorry sir, I don’t understand.”

Carlos allowed himself a glimmer of hope. “So can I get a haircut here?”

“Uh…”

Carlos sighed. “I’m getting really sick of this,” he growled.

“Hey, Angie,” called the tattooed woman from the back of the store, “tell him no one wants to end up cutting cactus spines.”

Tomato-hair, Angie, turned around and glared at her colleague. The Native American laughed.

“Cutting cactus spines?” Carlos asked with a confused frown. “What does…” and then he remembered what Cecil had said about Tully, that he had spent his time in the desert  
trying to give cactuses haircuts. “Is this about Tully?” he asked. “Is that why no one will cut my hair?”

Angie bit her lip, getting purple on her teeth. “Yes,” she admitted. “Kinda.”

Carlos threw his arms up in frustration. “That was a coincidence, Tully going crazy had nothing to do with cutting my hair. It’s not magic hair.”

The tattooed woman snorted. Carlos ignored her and continued to glare at Angie.

“Look,” she said, shaking her head. “Say I sit you down and cut off all those lovely black locks. Next thing I know, I’m going to be hearing about it on the radio, and then it’s going to landslide from there.”

“The radi…is this because of Cecil?” Carlos looked at the woman incredulously. “Are you telling me that you won’t cut my hair because my boyfriend is going to complain about it  
over the air?”

Angie’s eyes widened slightly. “Shit, did you not know that? Was I not supposed to tell you that?” She looked wildly around the shop – both the barbers and the customers were staring at her and Carlos.

“I thought you would have heard about it when Tully did it,” she explained to Carlos.

“I don’t listen to the radio,” Carlos said through gritted teeth.

“Isn’t that illegal?” asked the boy with the half-finished Mohawk.

Carlos, fed up, left without another word.

 

“Cecil!” Carlos barked as he let himself into his boyfriend’s apartment. He found the radio host sitting in an armchair in the living room, reading a book. Cecil, in addition to his usual, square-framed glasses, was wearing a pink shirt, tan slacks, and a blue sweater vest. Carlos had long ago given up on figuring out how the man could stand wearing such warm clothes in the desert. 

“Yes?” Cecil asked, looking up at Carlos with a smile.

The scientist stood in front of Cecil and put his hands over his hips. “I just spent all morning going to every single barber shop in the city, and no one would cut my hair.

“Oh?” Cecil said, obviously feigning surprise. “That’s good.”

“No, it’s not,” Carlos said, crossing his arms. “Cecil, you need to tell them that it’s okay to cut my hair, because apparently your opinion matters more to them than my money.”

Cecil looked shocked at the very idea. He put his book down and rose from the chair. “I could never do that! It would be a sin against every single god to deprive the world of your luscious, perfect hair.”

Cecil reached out to run a hand through Carlos’ hair, but Carlos slapped it away. Cecil looked hurt, but Carlos didn’t really care at the moment. He had just spent a long, hot morning driving all over town, getting more and more frustrated. He was mad, and not likely to get over it so easily.

“If I can’t get anyone else to cut my hair, I’m going to do it myself,” he said, turning towards the bathroom.

“What?” Cecil exclaimed, grabbing Carlos’ arm to stop him. “You can’t do that!”

Carlos shook Cecil’s grip off. “I am getting my hair cut one way or another, whether you like it or not.”

“No, wait.” Cecil stepped in front of him. He really did look very distressed, and Carlos couldn’t actually remember him looking this way. He was usually so…well, not calm…collected, maybe, was the word Carlos was looking for. Cecil took things in stride, and barely batted an eyelash when dead animals fell from the sky or the city was taken  
over by buzzing shadow energy. Now he looked worried though, even panicked. So Carlos stopped and let him talk.

“Don’t cut your own hair,” Cecil pleaded. “If anyone’s going to do it, let me do it.”

 

And that was how Carlos ended up sitting in Cecil’s kitchen with a towel over his shoulders, wisps of dark hair falling from his head to the tiled floor.

“So,” Carlos said over the cheerful snip, snip, snip of the scissor. “Where’d you learn how to cut hair?”

“Oh,” Cecil said causally, “I looked it up online a few minutes ago.”

Carlos felt his stomach sink down to nestle somewhere in his lower intestine. “Um, Cecil,” he squeaked, the snipping scissors no longer sounding cheerful, “I reserve the right to have someone else fix my hair if it needs it, okay?”

“It won’t need it,” Cecil assured him with a confidence that Carlos did not trust. Carlos spent the next few minutes sitting in silent dread. Despite his declaration to cut his own hair, he did not want to walk around looking like someone had taken a weed-whacker to his scalp. And what if Cecil decided that the hair cut he gave Carlos was perfect? What then? No one would fix it, and Carlos didn’t want to risk their relationship by shaving his head. He’d look terrible with a shaved head…

“There we go,” Cecil said happily, taking one last snip. He handed Carlos a mirror. “What do you think?”

Carlos blinked in surprise at his reflection. “Cecil,” he said, gaping at the perfect haircut his boyfriend had given him. “How did you…” Carlos turned the mirror to every angle, trying and failing to find even one out of place hair. Carlos looked up at the beaming radio host. 

Carlos laughed. “Oh, you jerk,” he said, standing up and putting the mirror on the dining table. “You were teasing me, weren’t you?”

Cecil blinked at him, looking confused. “What?”

“Where did you really got to barber school?” Carlos asked, putting his arms around Cecil’s neck and kissing him on the cheek.

“Wikipedia.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a few years ago, as you can tell from where it takes place in the timeline. I actually forgot about it until I ran across it in one of my folders.


End file.
